In general human breast milk represents the uncontested gold standard in terms of infant nutrition. However, in some cases breastfeeding is inadequate or unsuccessful for medical reasons or because of mother choice not to breastfeed. Infant formulae have been developed for these situations.
Infant formulae, follow-up formulae and grown-up milks which may be aimed at different age groups of 0 to 6 months, 6 months to 1 year and 1 year to 3 years respectively, are known. These infant formulae, follow-up formulae and grown-up milks aim to meet the requirements of infants and young children at the different ages. An age-tailored nutrition system for infants is described in WO 2009/068549, wherein a protein nature and content are adapted to specific age groups. The recommended World Health Organization (WHO) and Codex Alimentarius Commission guidelines for infant formulae and follow-up formulae state that the infant formulae and follow-up formulae shall not provide less than 60 kcal/10 mL and not more than 85 kcal/100 mL.
Generally, conventional infant formulae and follow-up formulae tend to provide about 67 kcal/100 mL.
There is generally a tendency to overfeed infants and young children. Usually also, the infant formulae and/or follow-up formulae dosage and caloric density do not take into consideration the complementary food eaten by infants and young children when overfeeding the infants and young children. Furthermore, the dosage and caloric density of infant formulae and/or follow-up formulae do not take into consideration the sex of the child. Powe and associates [Powe C. E. et al. (2010); Infant sex predicts breast milk energy content, American journal of human biology, 22:50-54] have recently reported differences in energy content based on the gender of the new born infant. Milk secreted from the mothers of male infant was reported to be 25% greater in energy content when compared with the milk of mothers of female infants. This recent data is not surprising given that girls and boys have different physiological needs based upon the standard growth curves for boys and girls (see FIGS. 1A and 1B). Thus, the tendency to overfeed infants and young children is even more accentuated for girls, because the dosage instructions and caloric density of current infant formulae and/or follow-up formulae of known infant formulae are the same for boys and girls.
It is known that a rapid growth of infants and young children increases a risk of obesity in later childhood or adulthood (see Baird et al.; Being big or growing fast: systematic review of size and growth in infancy and later obesity. BMJ. 2005; 331(7522):929.). Infant formulas need to reduce the risk of obesity in later childhood or adulthood. In the light of the data from Powe et al. one could postulate the risk of developing obesity is higher for girls.
A number of studies indicate that nutrition in early postnatal life has an impact on long-term appetite regulation. For example, overfeeding rat pups results in altered appetite control with development of hyperphagia in adulthood of the rats (see Davidowa H, Plagemann A; Hypothalamic neurons of postnatally overfed, overweight rats respond differentially to corticotropin-releasing hormones. Neurosci Lett. 2004 Nov. 16; 371(1):64-8).
There is a need to provide a more balanced diet to infants and young children. This diet should take into account the gender as well as the age of the infant or young child. The diet should promote health benefits in the long term to the infants and young children. There is a need to provide a nutritional system that enables the convenient, safe and accurate delivery of the most adequate nutrition all along the first months or years of the life of a baby.
There is a need to provide a way to insure that the best adequate individual nutritional solutions are made available to infants and their care-givers, in order to promote health benefits that may not be immediately visible but which consequences occur later in life.
There is a need to provide such cited nutritional compositions, especially during the first three years of life, that can help ensuring optimal growth and reduction of risk of health conditions later in life, such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, obesity, metabolic syndrome, or depressed immunity.
There is, thus, a need to provide a dosing system for infant nutritional compositions that acknowledges the gender of the baby, while insuring optimal growth and reduction of risk of health conditions later in life, such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, obesity, metabolic syndrome, or depressed immunity.
There is a need for an early-in-life nutritional intervention or control in order to deliver health benefits later-in-life.